The Top 10 Game Industry Disasters of 2013
06. The Wii U
Perhaps failure is not entirely an accurate statement -- but it sure did not do as well as Nintendo was hoping or the industry was expecting -- and nothing like how well the Wii itself did. The disastrous sales numbers are not easy to understand, but it is likely that they can be traced at least in part to the confusion that was created by the marketing choices that Nintendo made for its new console.
Bring this subject up with Nintendo and they will not deny it -- they have surveys that prove it -- the single biggest mistake that they made with the Wii U was its name.
To put this in perspective the sales numbers for the original Wii were north of 101 million units, far more than the PS3s 82 million units or the Xbox 360s 81 million units. Granted, it drew a lot of those sales from the previously untapped market of older and younger casual gamers -- a market share that used to be happy with playing phone-based games and hand held game systems, but who found in the Wii a console they could love.
That love had more to do with the Wii's simple motion controls and the universal appeal of its sports-heavy title library.Clearly Nintendo thought that that breakthrough meant it had its own market share -- a share in a market nobody else was actively competing for. But therein lies the problem. Wii owners aren't hardcore gamers of the sort that grasp the idea of upgrading their game platform or, it is increasongly growing clearer, the sort who understand why they should want to or choose to.
The choice of the name was unfortunate in that due to that odd demographic Nintendo failed to realize that their market share had no idea at all just what the Wii U was! And it was not just the gamer population either -- retailers were confused as well.
In the first months of its launch many retailers grouped Wii U games on the same shelves as Wii games, unaware that they were not for the same systems. Many consumers assumed that the Wii U was an optional upgrade, so you can probably imagine their surprise when their Wii did not work nicely with the new peripherals and games.
The solution to the issue was for Nintendo to pay for a major distribution effort for a commercial that explained the differences costing some serious pocket change and in the end if failed to spark the fire that Nintendo was hoping, leaving the next gen Wii a victim of its self-made disaster.
DRM should be a crime. Publishers need to realize that ownership is what capitalism is all about. People move, have friends, share with their friends, and PC's and consoles die. Hard drives crash. No one should be punished for having to deal with an already horrible situation, ie: catastrophic HD failure.
DRM also creates more piracy that it stops.
I personally was sad to hear about the loss of THQ.
But thankful that the Warhammer franchise was bought over. For all of their terrible games, their Dawn of War and Space Marine IPs were solid, fantastic games!
Will Sims freeplay be a contender for 2014 given the uproar of their new update? Should be its been bsit and switch. A real time game where sims live 42 days! Disgraceful.
"The fact that the vast majority of the content that was being targeted legally qualifies as fair use under the current interpretation of the law considered"
That's where a lot of people have a misunderstanding about Fair Use. Their vids might be seen as Fair Use but ONLY a court of law can make that decision no one else can. Also Youtube isn't at fault here, they are doing only what the law says. If someone files a copyright claim against a vid Youtube has to take it down or they may face legal action from the content owner.
Youtube has been sued multiple times by companies and other people over copyright infringement. Youtube was actually going to shut down do to all the legal troubles until Google bought them.
I took a gamecube to Iraq as well. Eternal Darkness was the kind of thing that made war seem not so bad.
Considering the Steam OS, I personally think that was a very big announcement from Valve and as you can see, lots of game developers thought the same.
Linux is going to be the future, like it or not.
Great list. On a positive note for us non multiplayers The Last of Us single handedly saved the single player game 2013.
Who cares about THQ. In the long run something else will fill the void. And the Xbox one is hardly a failure as they are still selling strong and making microsoft money. They told us before that it will be a gaming system AND a multimedia system. People just need to understand that.